Helen Pynor - Breath @ GV art

I attended the opening of Helen Pynor's new exhibition 'Breath' in Marlybone this week, a series of photographic images inspired by stories of drownings in the river Thames which exposes the relationship between our selves and the fragile and complex inner workings of our bodies. In the images ethereal garments are seemingly photographed in mid drift, carried by the currents of a river. The juxtaposition of drifting, fragile blouses and dresses with human organs which seem to flow from openings in the cloth make very evocative and striking compositions. The colour pallet of white cotton clothing and almost soft pastel pinks of human organs is anatomically accurate, and also very beautiful, especially coupled with the suggested fleeting nature of these scenes. The muted tones and delicate compositions go a long way to detach the themes of human organs and death from horror movie cliches and taboos. This scientific approach to human anatomy, used in a very aesthetic way in these images is maybe almost a return to the anatomical drawings of the renaissance, where high art was informed by scientific knowledge of anatomy. In the same way as renaissance paintings, the images from Breath can educate and inform as well as explore more abstract ideas about mortality and the relationship between our consciousness and our material being.

The photographic images from Breath also reminded me of the work of Toni Frissell, who photographed fashion models wearing delicate dresses submerged in water in a dolphin tank. These underwater photographs also evoke drowning, and explore themes of mortality and the fragility of our bodies.

Mimicry is the highest form of flattery

While visiting the Sony photographer of the year exhibition in London this weekend I was drawn to a series of photographs which appeared to depict plants being held in laboratory clamps. My first guess was that the photos  documented some kind of avant garde botany project, using genetic manipulation to change the genus of plants. In fact the real explanation was even more interesting, the photographs were taken by scientists involved in The Phylliidae Project, an international scientific discipline which aims to breed and manipulate leaf mimicking insects for entry into a yearly competition. From the images on display it was clear the standard is already remarkably high, it was actually impossible to see where the insects began and the plants ended. I wished a video clip had been included as part of the LCD information panel to the side of the photos, in which a gradually changing perspective would slowly allow the insect to be distinguished from the surrounding leaves.

The idea of scientists breeding insects, manipulating the DNA either directly or by altering the diet and living conditions of the insects, is endlessly fascinating. Human beings have long selectively bred animals to better meet our needs, or in the case of domestic animals for aesthetics, however the level of sophistication and detail involved in the leaf insect breeding surpasses anything you would see in a dog show. Another fact that caught my imagination is that all Phylliidae eggs are identical, despite the huge variation in appearance of the insects.

Given the constant miniaturisation of technology and a recent article I read about scientists attempting to control the behaviour of insects remotely, it leads me to wonder how long it will be before cameras fitted to custom ordered leaf insects are used for spying. Insects genetically altered to blend exactly into brickwork, or the specific rock formations found in the mountains of Afghanistan are used to film and listen to the conversations of terrorist groups or rebel organisations, or even sent to spy on the spouse of a jealous lover.

Motion sensing and garbage bags

This has to be seen; by using garbage bags, motion sensors and cooling fans, this installation interprets the movement of the observer by inflating and deflating the garbage bags.

http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2010/11/19/one-hundred-and-eight/

Quick Images

These are some interesting science related images I found online this week, I have been busy so not had time to post, but will be back next Sunday!

This week I found an interesting article about one of the fathers of the Japanse Manga genre, Osamu Tezuka, at the Guardian website;

"Over the course of his long career (Osamu) Tezuka became a defining force in shaping the genre, publishing more than 700 manga running to more than 150,000 pages. Early Tezuka characters had large eyes, inspired by their American counterparts Betty Boop and Disney's Bambi. Large eyes have since become a stylistic hallmark of the whole genre."

Obviously the insfluence of this artist spreads far and wide into the world of cartoons and Manga art, however, from the persepctive of this blog, it is the medical mangas published by Tezuka that are of the most interest. Tezuka began his medically themed mangas in reaction to his 'frustration at what he saw as an ineffectual medical establishment.' Drawing on his medical training, Tezukas popular manga 'Black Jack', includes realistic portrails of sometimes impossible operations, but with care taken to include correct anatomical information and surgical techniques. The level of medical realism in Tezuka's work has added enough credibility for the Japanese medical establishment to use images from 'Black Jack' in public information campaigns, and make this manga one of the primary sources of inspiration for students choosing to study medicine.

Black Jack operates on himself with no anesthetic, but with all anatomy present and correct

Reading this article made me wonder about the power of science to capture the imagination. In some ways this is an obvious question, fictional medicine is a world of life and death, and most people in the world have experience of visiting a doctor, either themselves, or through family and friends. Added to the basic human fear of death and illness, you have a powerful narrative device. With science can there ever be the same level of emotional involvement? For example, Maxwells laws of electromagnitism revolutionised the world of physics, and it is hard to imagine most modern technology having been invented without this elegant piece of mathematics. As a physicist, I can be amazed by mathematical descriptions of the natural world, that can be proven to be universal in any place in the universe. However, there doesn't seem to be the same room for hanging a narrative over the Maxwell equations as there would be over open heart surgery, for example.

Of course, science fiction is full of metaphorical stories involving mad scientists, or future goverernments abusing science. Compared to the medical Manga however, these narratives show scientists in an unrealistic light, and also predominantly as sinister or tragic characters. My question therefore is; is there room for a more realistic drama, or novel, or cartoon about modern science? If an author or artist could create an inspiring and enrapturing comic, or cartoon or film about scientists, wouldn't that be a novel way to cure the current lack of interest in numerical sciences, both in terms of university students, and the general populus? I can see a proposal being written to the IOP asking them to consider funding a cartoon series, or a series of novels, about a handsome young physics professor at Oxford University who works for the UK government, solving crimes, or aiding MI5, in his time away from his research on condensed matter physics. In my mind I see a Hunter S Thompson style mavarick, always in trouble with the dean, but immune from trouble due to his brilliance in mathematical science. In fact, I might get my pen out and start writing now!

Quick Links:

MRI scans of the insides of various fruits and vegetables, takes me back to the start of my PhD!

Guerrilla Physics on facebook

How to pirate a vinyl record

Hayward Gallery

The New Decor exhibition at the Hayward Gallery provided my dose of culture this week. Similar to the Psycho Buildings exhibition last year, the gallery had asked artists for their take on interior design, and the result was spectacular; familiar household objects warped out of context, challenging the viewer to explore the way they interact and percieve the building blocks of day to day life. After loading myself with a coffee in the cafe, I spent an inspiring afternoon exploring installations, most of which looked like the psycho cousins of the trendy furniture shops on Marlybone High St, and ranged from humourous to dark narrative explorations of alienation. One of the standout pieces for me was a light sculpture based on a Bridget Riley composition, an interesting hommage that reimagined the visual illusion of the Riley piece in 3D, using blown glass and pulsing light sources.

  Bridget Riley is one of the pioneers of Op Art, utilising and playing with the basic mechanisms of human sight perception to create strange and sometimes uncomfortable optical illusions. Her work is well represented at most of the Tate group of galleries, and is worth taking the time to see at full scale. In the Piece below 'Movement in Squares' Riley uses black and white geometric patterns to fool our eyes into seeing movement and shapes that do not exist.

This work touches on many apects of science, including geometric shapes, and also deeper ideas about how our eyes percieve shape and forms. In essence the piece above is a much more sophisticated version of the Rubin's Vase, both play with our ability to only see one colour or another as the background.

On my way out of the gallery I also noticed these lamps in the shop;

These 'lab lights' recently won a design award for best new light design, which fascinated me. The visual language of scientific equipment emerging into a field such as lamp design is an interesting way in which the design world has specifically been influenced by the visual world of science. As I have said in previous posts, I think science offers an interesting and unique visual language that invites its own type of narrative exploration. In the same way that the Hayward Gallery exhibition invited artists to reimagine the world of interior design, an exhibition of scientific equipment reimagined by artists would surely invoke interesting interpretations of what science means to society as a whole, outside of the scientific community.

I Fold

I was recently rather enchanted by the buildings of Japanese Architect Tadao Ando, whos designs at first glance seem incredibly cold and sparse, but on further inspection reveal a masterful interplay of ratio and space, creating expressive buildings that excentuate and invite exploration of the spaces contained within them. The japanese style of these wonderful buildings reminded me of the Shinto shrines I visited on a trip to Tokyo a few years ago; these traditional structures seem to blend into the surrounding woodland, and through the use of gentle lighting and paper dividing screens, both exude a peaceful spiritual feeling, and at the same time, invite the visitor to invent a narrative around the minimal but perfect interiors. I am always amazed at the power of paper as a building material, and the inventive ways it is used in Japanese, Korean and other oriental style structures.
  I was rather delighted then to find that physicist Robert Lang has made a scientific discipline of the ancient art of paper folding, Origami. This is not a main post, so I am just going to link to an article in the new yorker that explains Langs fascination with the ancient art, however I find this a particularly inspiring example of the way maths can be used to create sculptures, which are even more spellbinding when you consider are folded froma single sheet of paper.

Article on Robert Lang in the New Yorker

Upcoming exhibitions